introducing gabriel oakes shapiro

15 weeks ago we welcomed Gabe into our family.  Oh what a joy it is to have him here, and though I am so very, very tired, my heart is so very, very thankful that we are all here.  As the days pass, I know we are one evening closer to a good night sleep...and one night further from sweet newborn snuggles.  I'm trying to just feel great about where we are.  Being fully present is hard when the days are hard, but is so fun obviously in the moments that fit us just right.

Here is a letter I wrote to my college girlfriends the morning after Gabe's birth....

Hey Girls!

Just wanted to send you all a few pictures this morning of our sweet gift, Gabriel Oakes Shapiro!  He weighs 7 lbs and 5 ounces, is 19 inches long, and is such a sweet snuggler.  I'm so glad to be on the other side of surgery, and to get to have some moments with Jeremy and with Gabe to get to know this little, sleepy one.  He's eating good now, though he will go for his circumcision in a bit and they expect he won't be hungry afterwards, and he does have a heart murmur that they are watching, but he's doing great over all!  I had a rough day yesterday because my spinal block started wearing off during surgery--i could literally wiggle my toes before I left the OR and by the time we got to recovery I could already lift my legs, so needless to say I felt way too much of what was going on and that was not only really scary for me, it also made it hard to curb the pain afterwards since we were so far behind it.  I feel a lot better today and already have my IV out and my catheter is gone too, which means i'll be walking to the bathroom and maybe will be able to eat soon.  I'm grateful we are all okay!  Thanks so much for your prayers!

Y'all know us well enough to know we have a hard time naming our babies, but now we feel good about calling our littlest dude Gabe.  He stirred so much anxiety in me from the very beginning of pregnancy and as days passed I found it hard to trust that God could possibly give us another undeserved healthy baby.  Jeremy and I both had names we liked, but none of them matched except for Gabe.  One day while I was working on preparing a place for him in our crazy house, I heard a song that I had never heard before--a Christmas song that had a young boy reading a sweet version of the annunciation, which went something like this:

“Mary, you’re going to have a baby!  A little boy!  You will call him Jesus.”  (Wait.  God was sending a baby to rescue the world?)  “But it’s too wonderful,” Mary said.  “How could it be true?”  “IS ANYTHING TOO WONDERFUL FOR GOD?” Gabriel said.  So Mary trusted God with more than what her eyes could see.    

I realize more and more that I fail to trust God with my heart, and both Jeremy and I believe that Gabe does have some sweet things to remind us about the wonder of who God is.  Gabriel means "God is my strength" so as we hope that for him, we feel so blessed to get to know that better in our own lives as we journey with our youngest little guy.

Oakes was Jeremy's mom's maiden name.  No one has much good to say about her dad, so it felt like a less than honorable namesake to me until Jeremy reminded me that God is about redemption in our lives, and that he wouldn't be the person he is if that were not true.  Isaiah 61:2 says, 

"They will be called Oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor."  So, we're hoping for God's continued redemption in the lives of our children and are reminded of the sweet grace of claiming that gift in our own lives as we pray that baby Gabe will be righteous in God's eyes through Christ.

Isaac told us we could call his brother Gabe but that he was going to call him Michael.  Ada wants to call him Bo Basket, so I guess he's headed for some special nicknames.  The kids did great meeting him yesterday, and we are excited about their visit again today!  Can't wait to share him with each of you as well.  Again, we are so grateful for your prayers, and for the gift each of you are to our family!  God reminds us of His faithfulness through you all!

Much love,

Erika and Jeremy, Isaac, Ada, and baby Gabe

so full...

So much has happened this spring.  I put pressure on myself to document it, because I know these fleeting days are treasures, but are so hard to remember!  because I can't seem to document it all well, I just don't, and that, I believe, is a mistake.  So I'm going to try.  God gives me such joy in the hard of having young children...and sometimes not, but I don't want to miss this!  So here is an attempt at remembering some of this spring.

We had a followup ultrasound at 25 weeks and baby boy looked great!  His tummy was emptying and seemed to be functioning normally, which relieved my anxiousness so much.  I have had way more peace since then, and as he grew bigger, it didn't even really matter that I have an anterior placenta--i can feel him move just fine!

We got to spend some time in Memphis this spring--a few weekends for Whitney's wedding showers, and a whole week for her wedding.  It was fun to do Memphis things with the kids like go to the zoo and to the park where I grew up playing and to the children's museum.  The real highlight for them is time with their cousins, so though I was busy helping Whitney get married, they had a blast with Gracie and Gretta and with Ruru, who of course, serves us so faithfully.

We went to the beach with Nana too.  RuRu came and we had a great time swimming and playing in the sand and eating lots of yummy things.  It was Easter and it was my birthday, so Jeremy flew down and joined us for the weekend.  We went to dinner and saw the Hunger Games at the movies on a real date with no kids and we also got to go for a long walk on the beach.  It was a pretty happy birthday.  Isaac spent Easter trying to figure out how the Easter bunny got all the way up to Nana's condo hondo, which is something we should remember for the future in keeping the focus where it needs to be, but he  finally decided that he's just a really big bunny that can hop really high.

The kids have said cute things this spring, some of which I can remember and many of which I know have already escaped me.  I'm not sure if i've recorded this yet, but I will never forget driving down Hillsboro Road and having Isaac ask me if there will be flowers in heaven.  After I told him that I think there will be and that they will be the most beautiful flowers we've ever seen, Ada picked up on the fact that heaven is wonderful and asked with delight, "oooh!  is that where the hot dogs grow?'  (She would eat hot dogs 3 times a day if we let her).  She has since transitioned into her big girl bed.  It was such a big deal when Isaac did.  With her, we just put her in it one day for her nap and she was sold.  I love her in it because I can snuggle with her a little bit.  The morning after her first night in her bed, I ran up to check on her (thinking that she would come down to play as soon as she woke up).  When I saw here, she was content, surrounded by all of her dollhouse family, her favorite stuffed animals, 3 open books and wearing her sparkly flip flops.  Of course she loves the freedom of her big girl bed!

Isaac finished his first year at mother's day out, and really loved it.  He has a t-shirt souvenir with all of the hand prints of the boys in his class that he wants to wear forever and if it ever gets too small :) for him, he wants to at least keep it forever so that he can always remember his boys.  I'm so grateful for that experience for him.  He gained so much confidence socially and creatively and looked so forward to every day he got to go to school.  He went to Vacation Bible School at St. Paul last week (Ada calls it Bible Cation School), but he said they didn't play--they had to sit for a long time in Babylon :)

Another spring highlight was the "countdown" Isaac and Ada and I made to count the days until we get to meet baby brother.  We made it out of construction paper strips and stickers and markers.  We stapled the strips together to make a very long chain--over 60 loops!  each day the kids take turns taking off a ring.  I thought it would be a huge gift to see how many days we have until July 5th, but in the beginning it was really hard to feel like it was so far away.  Now there are only 11 loops left, making it hard for the kids to reach them (they have to stand on a chair).  Getting close!  We can't wait to meet you baby!!

Going to start Season 5 of Friday Night Lights with Jerome.  We are so tired.  So it makes sense to watch a show, right?

the big reveal!

Saturday was our big day!  We had a fun little family gathering to find out if our littlest one is a boy or a girl.  Pops and Ruru came to town, Nana and Papa T came over, and Dusty and Ellie did too.  We played a few games when they got here before we discovered the big secret.

First we played Bananagrams, the Baby Name version.  Jeremy and I are having a terrible time agreeing on a name no matter the gender of this child, so we thought it would be fun to have the family help out.  This is what they came up with:

This is Nana's board.  She's SO good at this game.

This is Uncle Dusty and Ellie's board.  Ubbonsaquar is totally in the running.

And here is RuRu's.  Not sure how we could pull off an Ada and an Oda, but well played, nonetheless.

After Bananagrams, we went downstairs to play a game we named "zone defense" since the grown ups in our home will be outnumbered by the children in just a few short months.  One defensive player guarded a baby pool while two offensive players tried to get the balloons of their team color in the "goal."  Papa T and Jeremy meant business.  who would mess with these guys?

Game on.  More later...

it's a boy!

And so, after games with the grandparents, uncle dusty, and ellie, we found out we were getting a brother!!  First we played bananagrams, only the goal was to name the baby with your letters.  Then we played a balloon game that involved hitting pink or blue balloons with fun noodles into a baby pool being guarded by a member of the opposite team.  Next we opened our big box, and to our surprise, balloons of all colors floated out!  we thought it would be filled with blue balloons or with pink ones, but in the midst of all of the color, we saw one rise that said, "it's a boy!"  I love the bottom picture of our "announcement" floating up out of the box right under the painting Dusty gave us of the Prodigal son.  I love the image of our baby boy being welcomed into the Father's arms, day after day and forevermore.

After the big reveal, the big kids ate popsicles and then they went on a poop hunt in the backyard to clean up after the dogs.  though i have to confess a little bit of sadness over not having another girl (i knew this would happen-it does every time), I am so excited that God chose a boy for our family.  As time passes (and now it has!  he is only 11 days away!), it's great for my heart to claim our threesome as brother, sister, brother.  it feels perfect for us!

Thursday's Big Box Adventure

Oh how hard it is on my heart to worry about a child, born or unborn, and to know that ultimately there is nothing that I can do put pray to the God who created this child in the first place to care for it.  I feel some shame in that not feeling like enough, when in reality Christ really is our only hope regardless of circumstance, but I am trying to really let myself be honest about how I feel and at least right now, honest and faithful might not be the same thing.

So, in preparation for finding out if our baby is a boy or a girl this Saturday with our families, we needed to do something fun to celebrate the little life growing inside me that will one day soon be a very special part of this world, no matter what challenges he or she may have or not have.  We decided that as part of our big "reveal" we would need a box, some paint, and a few helium balloons.  After Ada and I picked Isaac up from school, we drove to the U-haul store to buy a box that would suit our purpose.  When we brought it home, we covered it in brown packing paper, and the kids and I painted it to honor the brother or sister we will soon know.

Isaac loves green and Ada loves purple so they picked their favorites to start the paint job!

Isaac finished his side and then moved on to the next while Ada walked around in the paint.

And he just kept going to make his "creation" special!

We also went to Las Paletas, our favorite popsicle place, to buy 6 blue popsicles and 6 pink ones to eat with our families after we find out the gender of our baby.  Thanks to the help of this baby's sweet brother and sister, we had fun continuing to "prepare a place for you" in our hearts and lives.  We are so excited to know if you are a boy or a girl!

Jeremy and I took the box to the party store in our neighborhood on Friday.  We gave them our ultrasound and told them that we didn't know whether our baby was a boy or a girl, but that we'd love for the box to be filled with pink or blue helium balloons to reveal the gender of our child when we opened it the next day.  The staff got really exciting (surprisingly) about the top secret assignment we gave them.  It's so fun to get to involve other people in the big mystery!  Isaac and I think it's a boy, Jeremy says it's a girl (but mostly because he's always wrong and really thinks it's a boy), and Ada says it's a baby!  How funny that our little risk taker is the only one not putting herself out there!

21 week sneak peak

Wednesday was a crazy day!  Here are some of my thoughts summed up in part of an email I sent to a few friends and the grandparents who I knew would be praying for us.

Our ultrasound revealed that baby has an enlarged tummy and that fluid doesn't seem to be moving through it.  Everything else looked good, so the tech sent me to my appointment with Dr. Libby and then had me come back afterwards for a second ultrasound to see if baby's tummy had gotten smaller.  Libby said that often her experienced ultrasound techs look at everything very closely and since everything else looked good that she wasn't worried yet.  So, i didn't worry when i talked to her--in fact, i didn't even ask her what an enlarged stomach could be symptomatic of (mostly because i didn't want to expose myself to any unnecessary info that's going to make me scared).  When I went back for my 2nd ultrasound nothing had changed so the tech sent the scans to radiology and said that Libby would call me in a few days if she thought we needed to do anything other than another ultrasound in 4 weeks (which is so long to wait!)  The nurse recommended that I call on Friday just for peace of mind since surely Libby will have talked to the radiologist by then.  

I know i can't do anything but pray for this little one.  unfortunately i also just looked up "enlarged fetal stomach" on-line and now I have a lot of questions i wish i'd been able to ask this morning.  Most of what i've read says that 50% of the time everything is normal.  Otherwise it could indicate down's or cystic fibrosis (and probably a lot of other things but i decided to stop my search there since it was making me anxious rather than surrendered).  i did also read that it might be a symptom of gestational diabetes, which obviously be something we could manage.

I felt so grateful for a window of time i had this afternoon to be sad on a day that i got up and got dressed for with grateful enthusiasm--baby's first picture day.  i think i needed to be sad as the rain fell and my older two treasures slept safely upstairs.  perhaps the best, though, was the sweetness of watching them play in the puddles in their rain boots and belle meade hand-me downs (ruined, i'm sure, and for the first time ever i didn't care if they ruined something nice because nice just doesn't matter in the big picture).  i've never had more fun in the mud.

libby got my scans and looked at them before she left the office tonight.  she called me on my cell phone and said that she really feels like the baby's enlarged stomach is something we will watch but that without any other markers showing up on the ultrasound, she thinks it is best if we follow up with an ultrasound in 4 weeks and move on from there.  i asked her about each of the conditions an enlarged tummy could indicate, based on what i read on the internet, and she said, again, that each of those come with other markers or genetic history (though she did say that down's is hard to rule out on an ultrasound).  i was grateful for her eyes on my scans and for her comforting knowledge.  she was cautious to say that though she can't say with certainty that this will fix itself, she has also had patients who have presented similarly and she's never seen it become something of consequence.  I was relieved by that and was so glad she called me.  i wish i had thought to ask her what causes an enlarged stomach, so i may have jeremy call her back later and ask.

i'm going to have sparkling cider, i think, after all, on this weird, scary picture day.  even though we'll be in this unknown place for at least 4 more weeks and maybe until we hold our baby.  thanks for praying for him or her!  we'll know on saturday if it's a boy or a girl!

the new pond rocket

Jeremy and I had such sweet memories in the blue x-terra.  That was the rugged truck he drove (complete with Colorado tags) when I fell in love with him.  It's the car he cleaned before he picked me up for dates, the place he told me he had "absolutely fallen in love with me" on april 17, 2004, just a few weeks after our March 1st meeting, and the place where he kissed me for the first time (a very awkward but passionate first kiss experience for me that i like to refer to as a suckerfish kiss.  it was only afterwards that he held my hand in that old x-terra).  It was that car that he drove into a telephone pole trying to impress me with his mudding abilities after a long crud day afternoon at church, and it was that car that starred in one of his first bedtime stories about clarence and beatrice, two frogs and their pond rocket.  Ever since then we called it our Pond Rocket when we didn't call it the X, and I loved it, mostly because I love Jeremy, and it came with him.

I felt big in the X--way bigger than I feel in my little honda.  I felt cool in the X--way cooler than I felt in my reliable sedan.  Mostly though, I love the X because of the memories we made in it.  We drove to Colorado in that car (which is where Jeremy told a friend in my presence that he'd like to mary me) and then we had all of our newlywed adventures in it--to florida and camping and on ski trips.  We were able to fit our dogs in the back and take them to the dog park or to memphis with us, and as the years passed, we also were able to put our babies in it.  One baby, and then another, and now that there is a third on the way, not even the car top carrier will offer us enough grace to get everyone safely inside the Pond Rocket.  Besides that, it needs a lot of work, and because we knew we'd need a wider car by July, we figured it was smarter for us to pour money into a new vehicle rather than keep fixing up the X.

I grieved the change on my way south to pick up our van.  I drove slow on the interstate, savoring my last adventure in what was my boyfriend's cool truck before trading it in for a van that instead symbolizes for me a much more responsible and less care free lifestyle.  We arrived at the car dealership in a typical cloud of smoke accompanied by the smell of burning oil but thankfully no flames, and I said my goodbye as Randy the car salesman helped me get the car seats out of the back and the license plate transferred to the new van--the O, we like to call it.  Thank you, x-terra, for being a part of so many sweet memories in such a wonderful and awe-filled season of my life.

Now this minivan is making things hard on me.  I had no idea that shopping for a car had gone the way of the internet like everything else in our world, and though that gives us access to so much more, it also makes a heart like mine greedy.  After looking at our options (and test-driving what was available, which was top of the line, of course), I convinced myself that perhaps a minivan would be a good thing for this soon-to-be mama of three if it had leather seats and a sun roof and maybe some built in dvd players or an iPod dock.  Because the model we ended up with has none of the above, I'm feeling less than thrilled with our package.  I am thrilled, however, with the deal we got (I think it was a good one and in a season in which i'm not working, that couldn't be a bigger gift or need fulfilled), and i am also thrilled with the fact that the van will seat all of our children, which was our main reason for stepping into minivan land.  I'm hopeful that after a few adventures in our new O with the "magic doors" and working cd player (Isaac put money and "lots of it" in the cd players in both of our other vehicles so having access to our music again feels dreamy) I will feel better about it.  Honestly I am grateful for the reminder that it is to me of being surrendered in this season (and really always) to knowing our need and not feeling like we "deserve" the extras.  we have plenty of extras and plenty of blessing in our lives--leather seats and a sun roof don't need to be among the things i hold dear.  A vehicle that will fit all of us and that feels safe on the road is what we needed and the Lord, once again, provided.  I'm growing into it, slowly but surely.

It felt anticlimactic to pick up the new car and just drive it home so i took the kids to Wendy's to get frosty's in honor of the occasion.  After we enjoyed them, I realized it was time for dinner and that I didn't have a plan for what we'd eat when we got home.  I got back in line with Ada while Isaac finished his frosty and I set her on the counter to order her hamburger with no pickle and french fries.  When the lady asked, "how can i help you?' ada said out of the clear blue, "can I work here?"  I laughed and so did the Wendy's employee who said, "excuse me, what did you say?"  ada said it louder a second time and so the woman went to get her manager, who delighted so in Ada's request that she sent us back to our table with our hands full of kids' meal toys.  I still laugh about it.  These sweet babies make everything an adventure.  And therefore,  I'll drive the church bus if I have to.  As long as my car is filled with life, I really don't care if my i-pod works in it.

so much has happened!

today is january 24th.  4 years ago yesterday we met isaac for the first time.  we had so much fun celebrating his fourth birthday this year, and i can't even believe how big he is now.  he's such a boy.  he can do so much now.  i just love him to pieces.
to celebrate his big day, we had a dog party.  he wanted one for a long time, suggesting that everyone bring their real dog so that they could all fight in the backyard.  we decided to tame his request a little and he agreed that people could also bring a stuffed animal dog or a picture of a dog.  we had a dog show with all of the pups that came with the kids and it was so cute!  we also made dog collars, dug for bones in the sandbox, had obedience school, and ate cake that looked like dog food out of dog bowls.  isaac had so much fun.  his aunt name helped build him a doghouse out of a card table and some insulation board, which he loved too.  he was so glad to have his cousins here among his guests.  38 people, 3 real dogs besides our own, and 56 hot dogs--how wild is that?

yesterday isaac had gymnastics and then we went to sweet cece's to celebrate turning four.  after naps he played chutes and ladders with me and we also enjoyed his new ball and a dr. suess game called "i can do it."  mr. steve brought him some chocolate milk and gracie brought him a towmater truck that has a fun cannon on it.  after we played, we enjoyed dinner at mcdonalds at his request.  he ate every bite of his happy meal and played his heart out on the playground.  i only had to go down the slide twice (which was good because i'm too old or too pregnant to fit in those tubes).  isaac went down it tons more times by himself, and ada went down AND up it.  we had fun.  then we made dog bone brownies for him to take to school today, and did baths and read 5 books before bed.  i had such a great time with him.

in other news, we got a minivan last week, ada requested her first job, jeremy got a speeding ticket i should write about, and i am 16 weeks along with baby #3.  more later!